Nine Things You Never Knew About Her
by KissByTheFire
Summary: You suppose you'll just have to be strangers, then, with this woman who hides in her secrets. Years later, you wonder if that's because they were all she had left.


**A/N: Crazy plotbunny. I wanted to hurl it out the window, but it threatened to kill me in my sleep. Oh well. I also got a little format happy. :D**

Keep in mind that is meant to be vague, as in, certain dialogue and actions are open to your interpretation. The characters involved are twenty years of age. I like to think of the narrator of the story as a very serious boyfriend. 

* * *

**1.**

You've told her everything, from the exact names of your parents to that time you broke your leg in three places while playing football, and once more, as you share leftover pizza, sloppily-made macaroni and cheese, you ask to know something - anything.

"We're strangers," you say, with a laugh that lingers longer than it should. "Just a few details, and I'll shut up, promise."

She takes a bite, and cheese smears across her lips, still bathed in a ghost of red paint.

"You don't want to know," she drawls. "Trust me."

She says nothing more, turns the television on, and as you pull her, cold, soft, into your arms, you suppose that you'll just have to be strangers, then.

You love her, and that's all that matters.

{ you meet them at the funeral; the father is loud and unsympathetic, the mother's hand never leaves a shot glass, the sister weeps uncontrollably over the casket, mascara running everywhere - and you realize that she was right, you shouldn't have wanted to know }

**2.**

It's raining outside, a gentle drizzle that hums rather than beats. You find her curled up in the windowsill, notebook crumpled in her lap, pen lingering between her fingers. She is so still, so effortlessly untouchable that for a moment, it is a painting, captured forever.

She doesn't notice you, writes a few more words slowly, deliberately. She looks up to the speckled sky, reflection faint in the glass, and to your surprise, the illusion is still intact.

You ask what she's writing, and she covers the page with her arms, eyes dark.

"Nothing," she says, blonde hair pale in the shadows of raindrops. You can glimpse a handful of words, gathered on the frayed edge - feel kiss late. "Just some scribbles."

You shrug, go into the kitchen to make yourself a sandwich.

It's not really any of your business.

{ going through her books, you find pages and pages of poems, each one more beautiful, more shattering than the next, and for the thousandth time, you wish you could have shared this with her, could have been there when she went to this place where reality was weightless and anguish meant everything }

**3.**

You walk to the store for some milk. It's cold outside, and she buries her hands deep in her pockets, mutters complaint after complaint. You need the exercise, you tease, and laugh when she slaps you on the shoulder.

You're nearly there when you hear the screech of tires, and turn only to watch as a car speeds by, a dizzy mess of grey and black. Idiot, you think, continue walking until you realize she's no longer with you.

You look back. She doesn't move, fists clenched, empty eyes staring after something you could never hope to see. For a moment, the world has stopped and there is only her, lost amidst a fading whisper.

You call her name, and she blinks, is back from wherever it is she goes.

"Coming," she calls, and time begins once more.

{ a reckless car passes by, and you wonder how long she must have cried, how many people it must have taken to pull her away, and for the thousandth time, you think why why why }

**4.**

There is a box under the bed.

There is nothing special about it. It is small and plain and cardboard, just like the boxes filled with your old trophies in the closet. Still, you can't help but wonder what makes it so heavy; what the slivers of pink and gold you glimpse through a small tear are.

One day, you ask her.

"Just some of my old stuff," she says, cleaning dishes. "Nothing important."

"Maybe we should just throw it away, then," you suggest.

A dish slips from her hand, clatters against the metal of the sink.

"No," she says, a little too quickly.

{ on the floor of your bedroom, worn cardboard rough on your thighs, you lose yourself in a world of pink books and used bubblegum and a golden locket that has long since lost its shimmer; in the world of a secret that follows you long after you have slid it all back under the bed }

**5.**

Her dreams are never pleasant.

There are nights where you stay awake just to listen, watch as she seizes the sheets, cries out to a shadow that dances along your wall, to the stars that press against the windowpanes, and you're drowning, you realize, you're drowning in it all -

Someone's name crowds the air, and you shake her until it's over.

Sweat drips down her hair, sinks into her pillow. She looks to you carefully, painfully, and for a moment, you are still strangers, shattered by a single moment.

She turns her back on you, then, skin caressed by gentle moonlight, and you don't even bother to ask.

She wouldn't tell you, anyway.

{ you can only imagine what it was like, to see - touch - feel death over and over again }

**6.**

You know you shouldn't, you shouldn't, it's a bad idea, possibly the worst idea ever. This is how it started with Pandora, after all, and somewhere inside, you know that things will never be the same after you ask her this question, but it doesn't matter because you just want to know for once, and that is all.

"Who is Arnold?"

She sits on the other side of the room, face hidden behind the worn cover of a novel. For a moment, you think she didn't hear you, but then her eyes appear over the top, sharp.

"What?"

Her voice is quiet, grave, like a warning, and you really shouldn't press it, but you do anyway.

"It's just that - sometimes, when you sleep, you call out his name," you continue, and every word stiffly hangs in the air, like ghosts, like gasps for air.

Silence drowns the room. You can't even hear her breathing, and fleetingly, you wonder if it's because she isn't.

"I'm tired," she finally says, and is gone.

The bedroom door is locked for the rest of the night.

{ years later, you'll come across an old newspaper clipping by chance, one about a boy, a good Samaritan who once saved the neighborhood or something like that, whose life was tragically cut short in a car accident - you'll also notice her name, listed as one of the children who witnessed it happen, and for a moment, just a moment, you will understand }

**7.**

Another nightmare - no, stop, I can't, don't die, please I love - and you sit before her once more, questions lingering on your tongue. You spoon Lucky Charms into your mouth, eye the full bowl of cereal before her, ignored as she fingers a lit cigarette. You thought she had quit.

"He's dead, isn't he?"

The words slip through your mouth, and your eyes meet.

She sticks the cigarette in her mouth.

"So?"

It's the angriest word you've ever heard.

Her nails drum along the table, slowly at first, then - faster, faster.

"Did you love him?"

She closes her eyes; takes a long drag. Smoke flows through the room, like poison, and you have to cough.

Finally, she laughs, says "it doesn't really matter now," and you can't help but notice how her voice cracks; how one of her nails breaks when it hits the table.

{ there was never anything truer, you finally realize, when you're all alone; she never did anything but love him, and you just never saw it - you just never wanted to see it }

**8.**

It's late, and you are walking to the bathroom when you catch a glimpse of yellow through an open doorway. You turn back, only to see her slender form curled up on the floor, bathed in stars and moon and endless, endless night.

You slide down beside her, notice she is crying, face damp.

"I'm sorry," she says, hand soft on your sleeve.

"For what?"

Somewhere far away, you hear the beep of a car horn, and you clutch to her, as though she is fading away; as though at any minute, she will be gone and you will be left with air in your hands.

"I'm sorry," is all she will say, over and over again, and there is nothing you can do.

{ if you had known, you would have kissed her, fast and hard and where her past could not reach, if only for a moment }

**9.**

It is just an ordinary day. The calendar tells you so.

To her, it isn't. Her clothes are darker, her coffee is stronger, her cigarettes are quicker, and you can't help but feel as though this has happened before, as though you've seen this last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.

You reach out to touch her hand, and she moves it away.

"I have to go," she tells you. You hold out her coat, and she steps right into it, as though she's been waiting. You don't ask where, or why.

She steps out onto the porch. The wind streaks through her hair, and she looks back to you, still standing in the doorway.

"Goodbye," she says, walks away.

Forever, you think, and don't understand why.

The door slams shut with a bang, and she is gone.

{ you wonder if she planned that day, down to the last word she spoke; ten years, you find scribbled across a scrap of paper - ten years since i watched him die, and it still feels like it was yesterday }

**10.**

You hear the news a few hours later.

_She wasn't even watching where she was going. _

Your friends share sad smiles, help you to move her things out of the house.

_She stepped right out in front of it. _

Your family forces you to spend a few nights at home to recover. They thought this was the woman you were going to marry. It wasn't your fault, they say. I know, you say.

The driver didn't even have enough time to react.

You wait for an invitation to the funeral.

You're not sad. No one understands why - how could they?

Because at last, she can't hide something from you.

Because at last, you finally know she is happy, and that is all that really matters.

{ and in your dreams, you see a girl with wide pigtails, her clothes pink, her bow bright, holding the hand of a boy wearing a little blue hat; she smiles at you, and you wave - awake before you can even take a breath }


End file.
